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Fighters To Receive Equal Share Of UFC’s First NFTs

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UFC and Panini America have partnered to deliver the first UFC NFT trading cards, in a deal that means fighters will soon gain more royalties from digital collectibles than clothing apparel.

Panini America, the exclusive trading card manufacturer of UFC, will be creating digital replicas of the Panini UFC trading cards, which will feature UFC’s biggest fights, moments, milestones, and more than 100 athletes including Jorge Masvidal, Conor McGregor, Derrick Lewis, Amanda Nunes, and Israel Adesanya.

According to UFC promotion chief operating officer, Lawrence Epstein, fighters will receive a 50% share for the NFTs.

The deal is a milestone for the athletes, who usually receive 30% of UFC’s cut on licensed apparel and merchandise.

Epstein said in an interview: “The reality is that this product is one where you take the UFC brand, you take the fighter’s likeness, you put them together and 1+1=4 or 5.”

“A 50-50 split makes sense, It’s fair, and it reflects what both sides are delivering to the product,” he said.

UFC have faced backlash over the compensation of their athletes in the past, sharing 30% less revenue with fighters than that of other major US leagues.

“It’s always easy to compare splits in sports like the NFL, but they’re getting billions of dollars every year in guaranteed revenue from some of the biggest sports media companies in the world,” Epstein said.

“When you compare us to sports leagues of our size, we’re no doubt fairly compensating people.

And we want to continue to grow this business, and create more opportunities, like we have with NFTs, to provide additional revenue to our athletes,” he said.

Although he declined to provide specifics, Epstein said the licensing pool distributed to fighters is projected to triple this year.

Panini America CEO, Mark Warsop, said: “Since becoming the first trading card manufacturer to produce licensed NFTs in January of 2020, we’ve proven that the appeal of our most popular physical brands translates beautifully to the NFT arena.”

“And we’re confident that our planned UFC NFTs will take the category to another level,” he said.

The first two packs will be available 9 August and 10 August on the Panini NFT blockchain platform.

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